Hello Cartographers-
I was looking at the map today, and something occured to me.
Urth, just like Earth, is a sphere an oblate spheroid, yet usually projected on a flat map. This creates distortion, usually directed for different purposes.
I already know there is an “Urth in a Globe” map already. But Earth map projections include the Mercator, Gall-Peter, Winkel-Tripel, and many more. Perhaps there should be maps to correspond.
What do you think?
Your question poses an interesting concept, Atlae.
Creating different maps with distortions could be a complex endeavor.
However, I’m wondering what your reasoning to want these maps created is. Other images, such as climate or political borders, can give users information that is useful for roleplaying. A Mercator or Gall-Peter map that is created because it has distortion, on the other hand, does not directly assist people in a roleplay.
I cannot speak for any other cartographer, but I personally thing that this would be a lot of effort for very little benefit down the line. The creation of what is basically an entirely new map would be a major undertaking. We may be able to pursue it later on when there is nothing that needs to be completed post-haste, but I would at least like you to present your reasoning for the idea.
As I see it, there are always reasons to create maps.
The Mercator projection was originally created to accomodate navigation. If you set sail from Boston, and traveled parallel to the equator, the spot you would eventually hit would be on the Mercator projection. In my opinion, we could use that for military(ish) RP which regularly uses navigation.
The Gall-Peters projection was created for cultural appropriation. It was designed as an equal-area map, (which I happen to think did a quite shoddy job at it, too). This could probably be used by smaller nations to make themselves feel self-important.
But you got me. Some of these maps won’t be used RP-wise. Then why do I suggest them? Because I think it might be a fun thing for the Cartographers to do. Like the globe.
EDIT: Personally, I think that most of the maps are easy to make, except for the Gall-Peters or any other equal-area map. Most of them just require changing the shape of the map frame or the reference point.
Fun may be subjective to some people. I personally would not enjoy having to resize and rearrange every landmass on the map to a specific parameter. But that’s just me.
You do make some good arguments with why the maps would exist. I’ll bring this up to the others and see what they think. One of them may think it’s worth the time to make.
I went playing around with some projections earlier, and here are a few. We were talking about this before, and while projections are really interesting and necessary if you are measuring distances at large scales (country level or larger), they do not really have a purpose for RP. But I enjoy seeing how the Urth can be transformed in such a way, so here we go!
http://imgur.com/06fznXL
(I like that one because of how goofy it turned out)
Aint he impressive lads